Montverde Braces For A Surge Of Growth

Abandoned Site To Have 299 Homes Near Town

MONTVERDE -- On gusty days, sand blows into this tiny south Lake town, carried across barren hills where a planned golf-course community never materialized.

Approved as the Montverde Country Club in 1991, the roughly 430-acre parcel south of town was cleared a couple of years ago for a project called Hillcrest Country Club. Then the developer declared bankruptcy, leaving large tracts of sand, a huge pile of dirt and a few oak trees.

Sand-peppered breezes from the stripped, hilly landscape between Blacks Still Lake Road and County Road 455 never allowed folks in Montverde to forget that the country club could one day spring to life.

That day has come, according to the Ginn Co., which bought the property for $5.5 million Feb. 28 and plans to build 299 high-end, single-family homes and an 18-hole golf course with a clubhouse.

The Palm Coast company also is developing another upscale project next door: 500 homes on a nearly 1,500-acre Lake Apopka peninsula called Pine Island.

Ginn faced stiff opposition from residents before Lake commissioners approved the Pine Island project last July. But the golf-course development south of Montverde is generating no noticeable controversy. That may be because so many folks figured somebody would come along eventually and build it.

"It's been a done deal for a long time,'' said Glenn Burns, a Montverde slow-growth advocate. Because it was approved 11 years ago, "there hasn't been any opportunity for anybody to say anything about it since then. It was approved a long time ago."

Burns is comforted by the fact that Ginn will be handling the project. After all, the company made compromises with the Pine Island project as a result of the public opposition. There, the developer cut nearly 300 homes, eliminated a golf course and agreed to add trails.

It also agreed to put the entire project on water and sewer, which is also part of the requirement for Hillcrest, said Jim Cooper, senior vice president for Ginn.

"I think what we are going to be doing should be well-received by the community,'' Cooper said. He said the two projects -- the Pine Island and Hillcrest developments -- will likely be marketed as a package.

"One will have the water. The other will have the golf,'' he said. Work could begin on Pine Island by this fall, with construction expected to wrap up in four to five years. Ginn could get started on Hillcrest by early 2003 and wrap up in about three years, Cooper said.

The lots could cost $150,000 to $170,000, with homes planned in the $500,000-range.

When both developments are done, the projects will easily dwarf the population of Montverde, which has about 1,000 residents.

Montverde politicians aren't thrilled about the prospect of the developments moving next to a town that officials have historically tried to keep small.

But Ginn's plans are being overshadowed by a much larger project on the horizon, a mega-development planned by Lennar Homes just to the west.

That developer wants to turn 1,850 rural acres into a dense community with about 4,000 single- and multi-family units. So while Montverde Mayor Helen Pearce said "there's really nothing we can do" about the Hillcrest development, she did vow to fight the Lennar proposal.

"I don't want Montverde to be the center of new growth," she said. "I would like to keep Montverde small; I like it the way it is. We don't have a lot of hustle and bustle."

Pearce's main concerns with both developments revolved around the standard slow-growth arguments of increased traffic on local roads and the area's shrinking water supply.

Montverde council member Billy Miles agreed and said he also was concerned with the number of golf courses popping up in the area. Ginn's would be the first one so close to town. Lennar plans to have golf, too.

"There are so many [golf courses] I don't where they're going to get the water or the players to go on new ones," he said.